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The world is changing day by day. More sky rise buildings are popping out in different corners of the world, the modes of transportation are improving day by day, and people have improved their economic life as the days passed. These are just some of the good things that had happened in the world. However, the place that people live in has also experienced different hardships as the years pass by. One of the best examples of these hardships was the energy crises that happened in Central Asia. As everyone knows, Central Asia is a good source of oil, and this oil is being exported in the different parts of the world.

Cause

During the winter of 2007, scientists believe that there was something wrong with the gust of the wind and the temperature as well. It was recorded to be the coldest winter. Due to the weather, several establishments were affected. Not only businesses were affected but homes as well. People of all ages had to wear thicker or even doubled jackets just to keep them warm for the rest of the days. The people had to go into demonstrations for the government to assure them that everything will still be normal despite the current situation that they are feeling.

Effects

Health

Because of the weather, a lot of people have become frail. They easily get sick, and there were even recorded deaths of very young and very old individuals. Moreover, some people have also become too sick because there was a shortage of food at that time and so people did not get the necessary nutrients that they needed to keep their bodies’ strong and healthy.

Famine

As mentioned above, there was a shortage of food supply because crops and even animals had a hard time surviving. Good thing that the UN has sent some aid to the people who are experiencing famine.

Power Shortage

Due to the freezing of some oil in the oil plants, the government had to ensure that the people will get electricity and other sources of energy. The government scheduled power outages for all places to experience. In this way, the government has served its clients, and at the same time, the government saw good and potential workers. As a result, some people went back to their old ways of making fire and so people have become angry and hungry at the same time.

In summary, the energy crisis in Kyrgyzstan marks an integral part of the history. This situation cannot be avoided as it is difficult to predict what the Supreme Being is writing for you. However, this case can be eased out and can be controlled. For instance, the government has to empower other agencies so that there is the faster delivery of the services. Aside from that, during difficult times people see the people who stick with them. Moreover, trying times, people become united in their form of thanksgiving and praise.

If you want to know everything the new system about workplaces and technology, then you won’t like it at all. When people say that technology is not good for the common worker and that technology is stealing our jobs, they are saying the truth. This is a situation that we can all understand. For example, a company that produces cars doesn’t require a lot of workers to assemble cars. Machines and sophisticated robots do that instead of humans. So as you can see, machines are taking our jobs. They are more productive than us, and they cost less. When you need to buy a machine and maintain it, you will soon realize that it is still cheaper than an average worker. This is a sad story because machines don’t need salaries and they don’t need vacations and free days when they are sick.

As you can see, humankind can be in a lot of trouble because we are no longer needed. Companies now have a cheaper workforce which is more productive than us. This is a major concern because the big question pops out. What will we do? The human population will start to fall in numbers because of these machines. Some experts believe that this is a good thing because this is an effective way of controlling overpopulation. People will need to have a maximum of one child or less. Some people will usually say that this is not a good thing but take China for example. Families that have only one child have many benefits. This is due to the overpopulation in that country. Machines can control population because humans will see that there is no need of having more people on earth because there won’t be any more jobs.

Are machines not that bad?

Well, they’re not. The only human who will be needed is the one who will control and maintain those machines. It is a simple fact, and we need to face those facts. Humans are no longer needed in those numbers for production and industry. Humans have become a replaceable workforce, and the need for them will start to deteriorate.

Many will say that this will be our doom and that will are in real trouble. No, we are not, it’s just that there won’t be that much need for a large number of workers. And as you can see, we will need to adjust our lives according to that new situation.

If you want to understand new economic policies, you will need to understand the modern political systems and modern economies. Trends today are going towards the liberal market. When we say liberal market that is not entirely precise. First of all, we need to understand that there are two different lines in our system. First of all, there is a line that is usually going up and down, and the next line that is going from left to right. The line that is going vertical is the political line. The center is usually about liberalism regarding politics. Liberals are not that liberal as people think. They are some golden middle. They are a centrist type of policy, a mixture of authoritarian systems and libertarian systems. Centrists are those who are in the middle of both ways. Which turns out to be an ideal political ideology.

When we talk about economic policies, we usually consider left and right to be our guideline. Leftist economies are oriented towards the state, and the state interferes in the market. Those policies usually say that a welfare state is the best system for humans. It is when you consider the social security and health. In fact, this type of state is ideal. But what about the market? A state that interferes with the market and runs the market towards a certain goal can end up with catastrophic events. A guided market is not good because you can’t produce something that people don’t want to use for example so that you can give jobs to your population. The right economies have a free market which is ideal, but they are far from the secured state. In these systems, you are on your own. You need to worry about your healthcare and your social security.

So what’s the solution?

The solution is to take the best thing from both worlds and apply them. Centrists do that. They combine the free market with a welfare state. Those are liberals in general. Even there, you will have some different philosophies. But we are humans, and the only thing we need to worry about is our lives. The conditions we are living in and the standard of our lives.

Conclusion

We need to make sure that we choose the best system that will have best things from both worlds. We all understand how the system works. And we need to adapt to that system or change it.

Wait a minute. As in proxy server? Digital wars? Computer games? No. We mean the wars that different countries wage against each other with different armies. World’s superpowers are using some small countries that they are using to settle conflicts with their rival country. The same thing goes from the other side. The best example of proxy war is Vietnam War. The USA has been supporting South Vietnamese army while Russia, China, and other communist states supported Vietcong and other communist factions. They also provided weapons and ammunition as well as equipment and even troops. This is an ideal place to wage war on someone else’s territory without the risk of having that destruction on your territory and with your people. It is immoral when you think about it. You are using other countries for your goals. It is indeed immoral. But that is the situation.

And those superpowers will usually say that they are just trying to help those people from the aggressor that is near them. They are just trying to give democracy to certain country and people. They want to help them. That is far away from helping. They are usually into natural resources. Every war is about resources and economy. The only interest of these big countries is money and nothing else. And of course, they will usually start a fight about that money. Fights lead to wars. And you need a country to do that. You don’t want to kill your people.

Proxy wars are the best way for controlling other smaller countries

This is a typical scenario. Stronger countries support smaller countries with weapons and everything they need. In return, they need to go into combat whenever is needed. These are the rules of modern war trade. You will watch politicians on TV that are justifying certain military interventions in foreign countries, and they will usually say something about terrorism and stuff like that, but keep in mind that those governments could also create those terrorist groups just to have an excuse to intervene in that region.

If we want to have a free market and we want to have complete autonomy over our choices, we need to have a libertarian market. Markets that are controlled by states are not free markets. You won’t be able to buy things that you need, and you want. You would be offered some products that you are asking for, but if you want to buy a specific brand, and you don’t have that on your market, then it is a big chance that you state has something to do with it. Of course, this is not a rule. Usually, some brands don’t want to show up on some smaller markets because they don’t have a financial interest there. This is an exception, but we all know that modern states even those who are among the poorest states in the world have big economies in that price range.

What can we do?

If you want to have a free market or freer market, you need to make sure that your government creates and allows these conditions. Some governments that are authoritarian usually have planned economies and have many restrictions. Your job is to do whatever you can to make a freer market for your people. Organizing into groups is important.

If you want a democratic state, and if you want a democratic market, you need to have libertarian laws in your country. It doesn’t matter if your economy is leftist or rightist, you need to understand that it needs to have liberal or even better, libertarian laws. This is the best way to have great laws and the free market. The freer the market the freer the people. You need to understand that.

During 2015, Kazakhstan stayed a consolidated regime, this government has hired a host from western PR organizations to take care of its reputation abroad because it had to be changed to present a fresh country that is very open-minded. Of course, every country would want to have that type of reputation because that will benefit them a lot. In the eyes of other countries, Kazakhstan wasn’t a “young” country that seems to be open minded and because of that, they had to focus their time on changing that. If other countries don’t think that Kazakhstan is open-minded and it is going towards democracy, then they will never help them out. Their mission was to completely change that to their advantage.
In April that same year, Nursultan Nazarbayev won the election again with an outstanding 97.75% of the votes. If you are not familiar with this president, then we will help you out a little. He is a 74-year-old and he has been their president for a quarter of a century, that is considering to be a very long time, no matter what country you are from. Presidents usually are up for few years or maybe a decade by for a quarter of a century that is really an accomplishment. Because of these circumstances, people are often asked why they choose him for the president again and the reason is quite simple. The ruling of Nazarbayev is so strong that he rules out any other option for the people and that way he can easily win any election that he desires.
This time there wasn’t anything different, he was facing two different challengers who didn’t actually represent any threat to him. His victory has been long awaited by many people who are in some higher position because they already knew the outcome of this election long before anyone else. Unfortunately, none of this can be proven as a scam so people who are against him cannot do anything but to watch him win every time that he desires. However, him being so old, might change some things in the near future.

On October 7, a Russian Caspian Flotilla frigate and three destroyers launched 26 Kalibr 3M-14T cruise missiles at 11 targets in Syria, which flew nearly 1,000 miles through first Iranian and then Iraqi airspace before hitting terrorist sites in Raqqa, Aleppo, and Idlib provinces. The Syrian ambassador to Russia said the attacks took place after the exact location of ISIS bases were given to Russians. The missile used in the strikes, the Kalibr 3M-14T (NATO designation SS-N-30A), is an improved version of the Granat land-attack cruise missile, similar to the U.S. Navy’s Tomahawk BGM-109.

As you might know, Russia is one of the top military forces in the world and when they target someone, they always get the job done right away. These missiles that they launched on the terrorist were one of the most advanced ones that are designed for that type of destruction. The Syrian terrorist didn’t have any chance to get away from these missiles because they are a much more improved version of the Granat land missile.
Washington’s response was immediate: on the same day, State Department spokesman John Kirby said, “Greater than 90 percent of the strikes that we’ve seen them take to date have not been against Isil or al-Qaida-affiliated terrorists,” targeting instead the moderate Syrian opposition. He added, “So whether they’re hit by a cruise missile from the sea or a bomb from a Russian military aircraft, the result is the same, that Assad continues to get support from Russia. Assad continues to be able to have at his, you know, at his hands the capability of striking his own people, including those who are opposed to his regime. And that’s not a good future for Syria. It’s also, as we’ve said before, we believe a mistake for Russia, because not only are they going to be exacerbating sectarian tensions there in Syria, but they’re potentially exacerbating sectarian tensions in Russia itself. They’re putting themselves at greater risk.”

Across town at the Atlantic Council, Admiral William Gortney, Commander, North America Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command, speaking on “Protecting the Homeland” told his audience that the Russian cruise missile threat is a “particular challenge for NORAD and for Northern Command.”
The next day U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter declared, “We have not and will not agree to cooperate with Russia so long as they continue to pursue this misguided strategy. We’ve seen increasingly unprofessional behavior from Russian forces. They violated Turkish airspace, which as all of us here made clear earlier this week, and strongly affirmed today here in Brussels, is NATO airspace. They’ve shot cruise missiles from a ship in the Caspian Sea without warning. They’ve come within just a few miles of one of our unmanned aerial vehicles. They have initiated a joint ground offensive with the Syrian regime, shattering the facade that they’re there to fight ISIL. This will have consequences for Russia itself, which is rightfully fearful of attack upon Russia. And I also expect that in coming days, the Russians will begin to suffer casualties in Syria.”

The launch was a message to the world and the U.S. military that it does not have a monopoly on long-range cruise missile operations; these are also capabilities of the Russian military, which they, too, can deploy.

But if NATO was startled by the first combat use of Kalibr 3M-14T cruise missiles, their launch was a clear signal to the other Caspian states – Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, that Russia has de facto naval superiority in the Caspian, a factor that will have to be taken into consideration as all five nations collaborate on the issue of dividing the Caspian’s offshore waters and seabed while simultaneously developing their own nationalist energy policies. Diplomatic progress on the former has been torturously slow, while Russia is loath to see some regional energy initiatives succeed, such as Azerbaijan’s seeking to supplant Gazprom in the EU market and Turkmenistan’s efforts to construct a westward Trans-Caspian seabed natural gas pipeline. In such instances, naval power can prove a powerful peacetime diplomatic tool.
The Caspian basin is on the edge of changes, as rising turmoil in the Middle East and Afghanistan will intensify problems in the Caspian, and Russia intends to retain the dominant voice there.

The numbers tell the story. Russia’s Caspian Flotilla has 27 warships and dozens of support vessels. Russian Naval Commander-in-Chief Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky has stated that the Caspian Flotilla will get 16 new ships before 2020. Russia’s Zelenodolsk Shipyard named after Gorky launched the 1,500-ton stealth Dagestan guard ship, the most powerful warship in the Caspian, armed with the Kalibr-NK missiles, capable of hitting targets in the sea and coast. The Caspian Flotilla’s Tatarstan flagship is armed with the Uran missile system capable of hitting targets up to 100 miles away.

Iran has the second strongest Caspian fleet but deployed no missile ships until deploying the Jamaran-2 destroyer introduced changes to the fleet’s potential. Iran’s Caspian Flotilla has 90 other small motorboats and minesweeping vessels but is scheduled to be upgraded with anti-ship missiles, artillery systems, and helicopters. Last June Iranian Naval Forces Deputy Commander-in-Chief Vice Admiral Abbas Zamini said that Iran was planning to launch light submarines in the Caspian.

Kazakhstan is building a naval base at Aktau port to house its navy’s 17 small motorboat vessels. Three years ago Kazakhstan launched its first indigenous missile vessel, displacing 250 tons. The Kazakh Navy intends to construct several more warships in the next couple of years. In a development that Russia might object to, Kazakhstan has solicited U.S. assistance to help develop maritime aviation.
Azerbaijan has 30 patrol boats built in Turkey and three constructed in the U.S., sent through the Volga-Don Canal. The U.S. also helped Azerbaijan build coastal radar stations and an operations control center in Baku. Azerbaijan has recently signed agreements for the construction of several ships, including two submarines.

In 2008 Turkmenistan started building up its Caspian naval potential, purchasing three guard ships with remotely operated missiles in Russia and two Sobol patrol boats the following year. In 2009 President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov announced plans to build a naval base at Turkmenbashi to protect Turkmenistan’s maritime borders, having earlier purchased several Kalkan-M and Grif-T patrol boats from Ukraine along with renting seven Iranian motorboats and a destroyer. In 2012 Turkmenistan bought two patrol boats in Turkey and the Molniya missile boats from Russia; the latter carry 16 Uran-E anti-ship missiles. Turkmenistan recently also signed a $130 million contract with South Korea’s Hyundai Amco to build a shipyard and a ship-repairing facility in Turkmenbashi to start constructing own Arkadag patrol boats.

One casualty of Russia’s display of military power has been civil aviation routes over the Caspian. On October 9 the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) issued a safety bulletin alerting airlines that there had been “several launches of missiles from warships, located in the Caspian Sea, to Syria on 06 and 07 October 2015. Before reaching Syria, such missiles are necessarily crossing the airspace above Caspian Sea, Iran and Iraq, below flight routes which are used by commercial transport aeroplanes.” While the EASA did not issue a specific recommendation to avoid Caspian airspace, in the wake of its communiqué, Air France said, “From October 10, on the recommendations of its safety directors, Air France has temporarily put in place special measures concerning the flyover of Iran and the Caspian Sea,” but did not elaborate. On October 14 Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific announced that it was suspending flights over the Caspian, to be followed two days later by Kazakhstan’s flagship carrier Air Astana
Last year Russia convinced the other “Caspian Five” states to bar foreign militaries from the Caspian by agreeing to a “Convention on Independence of the Caspian Sea.” The Caspian’s sole entry and exit is the 37-mile-long Volga-Don Canal, built under Joseph Stalin and currently under Russia’s sovereign control. The canal’s other exit is in the Sea of Azov, which connects with the rest of the Black Sea via a narrow strait now controlled from both sides by Russia after the March 2014 Crimean annexation.

Since the Volga-Don Canal qualifies in international maritime law as Russian “internal waters,” Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Turkmenistan can expect no outside naval intervention if their relations with Russia turn difficult. As none of them have Caspian combat experience, the Caspian Flotilla’s recent Kalibr 3M-14T cruise missiles launch represent regional gunboat diplomacy at its finest.

While the West remains fixated on Moscow’s assistance to embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, closer to home Russia and the post-Soviet space are taking the IS threat very seriously.

Russia is a very strong and powerful military force that you don’t want to mess around with and they are taking every threat seriously because they know they can deal with every problem. Not every country has a military force powerful as Russia and because of that some prefer to stay out of trouble for as long as possible and this way saves money. As you might know, when doing any type of military action, the country is spending a lot of money and some just cannot afford to deal with the smaller threats all the time.

While the West dithers over which factions opposing al-Assad’s government are worth supporting, concern over the rising threat of militant Islam is impacting the activities of both the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), leading to greater cooperation and military integration to combat jihadi activities from spilling into member states, as evidenced by two meetings earlier this month.
CSTO heads of states gathered in Dushanbe on September 14-15 to discuss regional security issues, after which they issued a joint statement, voicing concerns about the possible infiltration of IS militants from Afghanistan into Central Asian nations and Russia. CSTO member nations include Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned delegates of potentially dire consequences for Muslim nations and the world if the IS threat is not contained, telling attendees, “The situation around Syria, the state of affairs there, is very serious. The so-called Islamic State group controls significant territories of both Iraq and Syria. The terrorists say that they are already taking aim at Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. Right now, it is necessary to combine the efforts of the Syrian government, the Kurdish militia, and the so-called moderate opposition and the other countries of the region in the battle against the threat to Syria’s very statehood and the battle against terrorism. We support the Syrian government in its opposition to terrorist aggression and we are providing it, and will continue to provide it, with the necessary military-technical assistance.” Noting that militant activities are infiltrating the World Wide Web, CSTO General Secretary Nikolai Bordyuzha announced that the CSTO’s authorities have identified and shut down more than 50,000 websites involved in ISIS recruitment.

Moving from rhetoric to concrete action, the CSTO joint statement noted that CSTO’s Rapid Reaction Collective Force (KSOR) will become an increasingly important regional security guarantor. KSOR, formed in 2009, currently includes 22,000 military personnel. The summit also discussed creating a new security institution, a CSTO’s Crisis Reaction Center (CRC), which will coordinate its activities with Russia’s Defense Ministry.

In another security gathering in the post-Soviet space, on September 18 in Tashkent, the 27th regular session of the council of the Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (RATS SCO) was held to evaluate the SCO’s September 15-17 command-staff anti-terrorist exercises in Kyrgyzstan. Representatives from Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and RATS SCO executive committee members attended the session.
The atmosphere was bleak. Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) first deputy director Sergei Smirnov remarked that 2,400 Russian citizens are now fighting for the IS, along with about 3,000 Central Asians. Smirnov added that special services from SCO members are stepping up joint work to fight the jihadist group, remarking, “That work has been underway now for some time… All SCO member states understand this danger, and we are working out measures to step up the activity of the SCO RATS in countering IS.” Smirnov concluded his remarks by echoing Bordyuzha’s concerns that terrorists are increasingly using the Internet more and more to recruit supporters, observing, “The danger we encounter is that cyberspace is increasingly popular among young people; this is used by the heads of jihadi groups to bolster their ranks, not only in Syria and the Middle East but in Russia, China and other countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.”

Russia has forcefully articulated its concerns about IS jihadis, seeing them as a greater threat than even NATO to Russian security. On April 22 Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov remarked, “The Islamic State is our main enemy at the moment. If only because hundreds of Russian citizens, hundreds of Europeans, hundreds of Americans fight alongside IS. They are already coming back… and… could stage vile actions at home. We are helping both Iraq and Syria, possibly more effectively than anyone else, by providing weapons to their armies and security forces.”

Despite Washington’s sudden, shocked reaction to Russian military assistance to Syria, it is not new. As the IS extended its influence, Russian assistance to Syria rose accordingly. By the end of 2013 Russian armaments were being flown in by dozens of Antonov-124 cargo transports carrying armored vehicles, surveillance equipment, radars, electronic warfare systems, helicopter spare parts, and weaponry, including ammunition and guided aerial bombs. In addition, Russian advisers and intelligence experts operated unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to assist the Syrian military to locate insurgent positions, provide tactical analysis and assist the Syrians in carrying out precision artillery and air force strikes.

Nor is Russian assistance to combat the IS limited to Syria. While Iraq remains closely allied to the U.S. despite the Pentagon ending its military presence there in December 2011, Russia is supporting Iraq militarily as well. In June 2014 Russia declared its support for the Iraqi government and provided Su-25 jets and sent experts to aid the country in its fight against the IS. Iraq’s Defense Ministry announced on February 1 that its Army Air Corps had received a new shipment of two Russian Mi-28NE attack helicopters, bringing its total fleet to 15. On March 20 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a meeting with Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said that Russia would continue to support Iraq in its fight against terrorism and strengthen its military-technical assistance.
Aside from coordinating anti-terrorist activity in the post-Soviet space, Putin is also lining up theological support for the Russian government’s anti-terrorist activities. On 18 September , Ravil Gaynutdin, Head of the Council of Muftis of Russia said that Russian Muslims are expressing solidarity with Putin’s policy on Syria, telling the Syrian envoy to Russia, Riyad Haddad, “We, Russian Muslims, citizens of our country, strongly support our government’s efforts in stabilizing the climate in Syria and countering terrorism, stressing that Russian Muslims also fully support the efforts of the Syrian government in combating terrorism before concluding, “We think that it is on the basis of fighting terrorism that global society should unite, consolidate and fight together, on terms of equal partnership.”

As for the future, Russia remains committed to assisting Syria and Iraq resist the IS, whatever the diplomatic consequences, along with promoting its own security concerns and those of its post-Soviet alliance members. As the IS militant threat continues consuming Syria and Iraq, Russia’s consistency in seeing it rather than al-Assad’s government as the real threat stands in stark contrast to the policy of most Western nations, and will apparently do so for the foreseeable future.

As for post-Soviet initiatives to cope with the IS threat, during the Dushanbe summit, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon suggested making increased cooperation between the CSTO and the SCO a high priority. Twenty-four years after the collapse of the USSR, the post-Soviet space under Russia’s leadership is uniting to counter a danger that if unchecked threatens them all, a long-term view that the West would do well to emulate rather than seeking al-Assad’s ouster as an integral component of its own anti-IS activities.

Even as global warming remains a political football in many Western countries, there are increasing numbers of scientific studies elaborating various aspects of rising temperatures worldwide. While many studies focus on the thinly populated Arctic regions or the desolate Antarctic, glacier melt in Asia has the potential for disrupting human life on a massive scale, as rivers dependent glacier melt flow through densely populated lowlands.

As you might know, the most dangerous thing that is affecting the entire world is the global warming and not only because of the melting glaciers. There are some other problems that global warming will and is causing. In some areas of the world, the global warming causes severe dry seasons that are lasing for few years. For people who are living in these places, this is the worst nightmare because they cannot grow any type of plants or every raises animals for food. Those people have no other choice but to move from their home to a different place where there is water.
One of the latest scientific studies is “Substantial glacier mass loss in the Tien Shan over the past 50 years,” published last month in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience. The study’s researchers based their analysis on data from the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE), a satellite launched in 2002 and the that is jointly operated by NASA and the German Aerospace Center and NASA’s Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), operated by NASA and launched in 2003. The researchers concluded that glaciers in Central Asia’s Tien Shan Mountains have lost more than a quarter of their total mass over the past 50 years, a rate of loss about four times greater than the global average.
Even more ominously, if current trends continue unchecked, the researchers predicted that by 2050, half of the remaining ice still left in the Tien Shan glaciers could disappear. The researchers postulated that the decline was caused “primarily by summer melt and, possibly, linked to the combined effects of general climatic warming and circulation variability over the north Atlantic and north Pacific.”

These developments carry enormous political consequences for the post-Soviet space, as Central Asian water disputes between the five “Stans” — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan — have been slowly worsening since the implosion of the USSR in 1991. All of the five nations depend on scarce regional water reserves both for irrigating their agriculture and providing potable water, and the majority of regional glacial melt freshwater is provided by just two rivers.
Glacier melt is carried by Central Asia’s 1,500-mile Amu Darya and 1,380-mile Syr Darya rivers, which originate in the Pamir and Tien Shan mountain ranges in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan before meandering westwards through Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to empty into the Aral Sea. The Amu Darya’s headwaters in the form of the Panj River arise in Tajikistan, while the Syr Darya originates in Kyrgyzstan. Tajikistan has an abundance of glacier-fed streams and rivers and more than 1,300 natural lakes. Besides river water, Tajikistan also contains many glaciers, of which the 270-square-mile Fedenko glacier is the largest in the world outside the polar regions.

The Amu Darya and Syr Darya water flow, whose combined flow before massive Soviet agricultural projects were implemented equaled the Nile, is unique in that, until 1991, they were part of a single country, the Soviet Union, with water management policy directed by Moscow.

The amount of water taken from the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya doubled between 1960 and 2000, allowing cotton production to nearly double in the same period. By the 1980s, nearly 90 percent of water use in Central Asia was directed toward agriculture, primarily cotton production, with the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya supplying nearly 75 percent of the water flow. The rivers together contain more than 90 percent of Central Asia’s available water resources.

Overall, Uzbekistan consumes more than 50 percent of the two rivers’ flow for its cotton production, while in Turkmenistan, the Amu Darya’s waters are used exclusively for agriculture as it flows onward through Uzbekistan to the Aral Sea. Kazakhstan’s water relations with neighboring states are determined by its significant dependence on their river flows, which account for 44 percent of Kazakhstan’s surface water resources.

As the USSR had a centrally planned economy directed from Moscow, the result was to develop industries directed towards benefiting the Union as a whole, rather than its constituent republics. This is nowhere more evident than in Central Asia after authorities in Moscow decided to turn the region into the USSR’s cotton plantation, in order to feed the textile industry that began to spring up around Moscow.

The dolorous effects of this decision continue to reverberate to this day, more than two decades after the fall of the USSR, as the five “Stans” – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan spar over the region’s most precious yet increasingly rare resource – water. While regional coordination efforts to develop equitable water policies began soon after the fragmentation of the USSR, issues about water usage continue to impact relational relations, often for the worse.

Following independence, Central Asian leaders recognized the problem of developing a new, post-Soviet regional water policy; in 1993 the Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkmen and Uzbek presidents established the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination to harmonize their water policies. But while the ICWC has since held more than 50 meetings, little has been accomplished; in the ensuing vacuum, each nation has increasingly developed nationalist policies, often to the detriment of its neighbors.

Tensions are worsened by the fact that resource-poor upstream states Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan see part of their future economic salvation in the form of electricity exports to neighboring countries, leading both to construct more hydroelectric barrages on their watercourse – alienating downstream neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, who depend on regular water discharges during the spring and summer months for their agriculture. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are increasingly releasing water from their reservoirs during the autumn and winter to generate electricity, causing downstream flooding.

At a seminar in Dushanbe on November 11, Uzbekistan’s Environmental Protection State Committee specialist Muhammadzhon Hojayev proposed collaborating with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to conduct aerial survey studies of glacier melt in the Tien Shan and Pamir mountain ranges to assess the problem, as the last aerial surveys were done 14 years ago. The problem is accelerating; UN Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia Deputy Head Fedor Klimchuk told seminar participants, “The main reason of glaciers melting is climate warming and man-induced factors. Glaciologists say glaciers may disappear by the end of this century.”
A diplomatic solution exists – the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1997 after 27 years of negotiation, whose Article 5 states, “Watercourse States shall in their respective territories utilize an international watercourse in an equitable and reasonable manner.” While Uzbekistan has ratified the convention, it is the only Central Asian country to do so.

What is certain is that Central Asian states must develop coordinated policies to address water issues. Afghanistan will soon further complicate the picture; in March, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani told the Council on Foreign Relations, “We are the source, the headwater source for all our neighbors, but only 10 percent of our water is utilized. As a result, we face a cycle of droughts and floods. Floods alone cost us a billion (dollars) a year. Harnessing this water is the critical driver now of bringing prosperity to agriculture and the value chains.” When Afghanistan begins significant diversions of water for its own needs, regional tensions will be further exacerbated.

While a long-term solution remains unclear, post-Soviet Central Asia can nonetheless take some steps to ameliorate the situation. These include: swapping out water-thirsty crops for less demanding ones; improve irrigation efficiency by lining canals and ditches to reduce seepage and introduce conservation techniques. Energy cash-rich Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan can also use some of their hydrocarbon wealth to invest in desalinization plants on their Caspian shores.

Finally, the post-Soviet Central Asian nations can stop treating water issues as purely national issues by embracing existing diplomatic legislation, including the United Nations Convention on International Watercourses. What is certain is that scientific research provides a compelling case that snowpack in the Tien Shan and Pamir mountain ranges will not replenish anytime soon. With the environmental catastrophe of the destruction of the Aral Sea an example of ignoring nature’s consequences for man’s behavior, regional leaders should put aside petty national differences to work for the common good, as once the glaciers are gone – they’re gone.

Nine months ago Armenia and Iran signed an agreement to construct a railway between their nations. At the time, it seemed a win-win deal for both nations, Armenia having closed borders with both Azerbaijan and Turkey, and Iran hemmed in by sanctions.

But now, with the imminent lifting of Western sanctions, Iran is likely to abandon the estimated $3.7 billion project, which cash-strapped Armenia is unable to finance on its own. When a sudden change like this happens, people are left with a lot of questions because they don’t really have experiences with situations like these. Of course, Armenia will not be able to finance the project all by itself, in order to finish the railway, both countries have to participate in the process because we are talking about a lot of money. As mentioned, this railway would be a huge benefit for everyone, so the idea is supported by both of countries, but because of the circumstances, Iran may have to abandon this great project.
What has the Armenian government so unsettled is that Iran and Azerbaijan are now having discussions about establishing a railway connecting the two countries. As this railway would have the same functions as the Iran-Armenia railway, the two projects can be considered direct rivals. If Iran and Azerbaijan set up this communication route, the Iran-Armenia railway will be useless, and vice versa.

Where the Armenia-Iran railway comes up short is cost, currently estimated at roughly $3.7 billion. In contrast, the official price of the construction a rail link between Azerbaijan’s Astara and Iran’s Rasht is $400 million, making the Armenian-Iranian rail option nearly nine times more expensive.

The cheaper cost of the Iran-Azerbaijan railway is not its only advantage. If the Iran-Armenia railway is built, then products shipped to Russia from Iran by this railway will have to make a rather tortuous route, as Armenia has no direct rail links to Russia. In case of the Iran-Azerbaijan railway, the trains from Iran will enter Azerbaijan and then Russia. An additional advantage of the Iran-Azerbaijan railway along with the construction expenses is the cost of its maintenance and that of the provision of transport services.

Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region and some adjacent territory have been under the control of Armenian soldiers and ethnic Armenian local troops since the end of a six-year separatist war in 1994. In 1993, before the ceasefire, Turkey closed its border with Armenia in solidarity with Azerbaijan. The Armenian-Azeri border is also closed, effectively isolating Armenia.

Accordingly, while neither government has yet publically dropped the Armenia-Iran railway, all the portents for doing so are there, despite government agreements and MoUs.
On November 13, 2014, Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development of Iran Abbas Akhundi announced that Iran had signed a memorandum of understanding with Armenia on building an Armenia-Iran railway, adding that the agreement called for Armenia to extend their railway to the city of Julfa in Iran. The 237-mile railway would consist of 50 miles passing through Iran and 188 miles via Armenia.

The following month Iranian Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian announced on the sidelines of the Iran-Armenia 12th Joint Economic Cooperation Commission in Tehran that Iran and Armenia would cooperate in various economic fields, including construction of hydro and wind generators, power transfer lines, Aras river environmental protection issues, railway construction, and mining.

Reading the writing on the wall, during the July BRICS summit held in Ufa, and the EEU and SCO meetings held there as well, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan invited the organizations to participate in the construction of the Armenia-Iran railway, but no one expressed any interest in the project.

Six months ago, the South Caucasus Railway (SCR), a Russian Railways subsidiary firm operating Armenia’s railroads under a concession agreement that was concluded in 2008 for 30 years, announced at the South Caucasus Infrastructure & New Energy Investment Summit in Tbilisi that it had spent $245 million to modernize Armenia’s railway infrastructure from 2009 to 2014.

Russian Railways opposed the Armenia-Iran railway, a not insignificant consideration given its position. On June 8 Russian Railways President Vladimir Yakunin said that the Armenia-Iran railway had no prospects and was “the same as opening a hole in the wall to nowhere.” Undaunted, Armenian Deputy Minister of International Economic Integration Suren Karayan told Parliament on June 15 that preparations for the construction of Iran-Armenia railway were underway. Karayan stated that construction could begin in 2016 and be completed in 2022 and the cost of the Iran-Armenia railway, estimated at $3.2 billion, would see 60 percent coming from the Dubai-based Rasia investment firm, which submitted a funding proposal in 2014

In the meantime, Armenia can only gaze longingly at the rising trade volumes passing through fellow Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA) member Azerbaijan. TRACECA is an international cooperation transport program between the EU and partner Eastern European, South Caucasian and Central Asian nations. TRACECA member states are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Iran, Moldova, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. TRACECA has a permanent secretariat in Baku, originally financed by the European Commission, and a regional office in Odessa. Since 2009 TRACECA has been entirely financed by member countries.

While Armenia’s foreign trade languishes, Azerbaijan’s TRACECA transit trade rises. Azerbaijan’s State Statistical Committee reported that the volume of cargo transported via the TRACECA Eurasian transport corridor through Azeri territory in January-February 2015 was 9.1 million metric tons, or 1.6 percent more than in the same period of 2014. The committee’s report said that the road transport accounted for 54.1 percent of the total volume of transported cargo, railway – 31 percent and maritime transport – 14.9 percent. Furthermore, 53.8 million passengers traveled along the TRACECA corridor in January-February, 7.9 percent more than in the same period of 2014.

Azeri revenues from the cargo transportation via the TRACECA corridor totaled $80.1 million, an 8.6 percent increase over the same period in 2014. Passenger fare receipts stood at $19 million, a 14.7 percent increase over the same period of 2014.

Azerbaijan’s geostrategic position as a Caucasian transit corridor will strengthen further even as Armenia’s declines with the opening later this year of a key component of the slowly emerging Eurasian railway network along the historic “Silk Road,” the much delayed 513-mile-long, Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, costing more than $613 million, which when complete, will integrate the national rail systems of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. The peak capacity of the BTK will be 17 million metric tons of cargo per year, with initial stage projections of one million passengers and 6.5 million metric tons of cargo. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is attending the Chinese-Turkish business forum in Beijing, announced that the first BTK test train began crossing Turkish territory on July 30.

Interest in the BTK extends far beyond the three countries involved. Last December Kazakhstan’s ambassador to Azerbaijan, Amangeldy Zhumabaev, told a press conference, “For us, it is very important to have access to foreign markets, we could supply not only oil and natural gas but also other products. The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railroad, which opens next year, is a great opportunity for us. According to our data, the volume of freight traffic on this route will be 16 million tons, and we would like to see our products in this volume.”
Farther afield, China is also interested in using the BTK. Last November, Azerbaijani Minister of Transport Ziya Mammadov said that the Chinese Ministry of Railway Transport had guaranteed transportation of 10 million tons of cargo annually via the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway.

Even Afghanistan is interested in the BTK. In March Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Zarar Ahmad Osmani has expressed interest in the BTK railway being extended on to Afghanistan via Caspian railway car carrying ferries across the Caspian from Azerbaijan through Turkmenistan.

Azerbaijan is also upgrading its maritime infrastructure. The state of the art new Baku International Sea Trade Port ferry terminal in Alat, 40 miles south of Baku, has begun operations, while the Baku SeaPort has begun upgrades which will be ready for commissioning later this year. Baku Sea Port’s cargo transportation capacity will be gradually increased to 25 million metric tons and one million containers per year.

According to Azerbaijan Railways head Arif Asgarov, Armenia can participate in the BTK – but only after the Armenian-Azeri Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is settled.
As a harbinger of things to come, the first test container train from China arrived at the Baku International Sea Trade Port via the Trans-Caspian international transport route on August 3. The train, consisting of 82 containers and 41 railway cars, departed from Shihezi city on July 28, traveling more than 2,500 miles to the Kazakh Caspian port of Aktau, where it was transferred to a ferry for transshipment to Baku.

The former head of the Armenian Central Bank Bagrat Asatryan succinctly observed, “Armenia is under an effective blockade now since it has no railroad communication with its main trade partners: Europe and Russia.” Given the rising trade all around it as the Armenian economy continues to flat-line, thoughtful Armenian politicians must undoubtedly be wondering if retaining Nagorno-Karabakh is worth the cost.